Japan campaign

The Japan campaign (June 1944-August 1945) was a series of battles in and around the Japanese Home Islands during the last stage of World War II. The Japan campaign was the last major campaign undertaken by the United States during its war with Japan, and it attempted to force Japan to surrender by launching devastating firebombings against civilian centers, bombing Japanese industrial areas, mining Japanese waters, sinking Japanese merchant marine ships, destroying Japanese airfields, and sinking the Imperial Japanese Navy's last ships in their ports. The campaign was brought to an end on 15 August 1945, when Japan surrendered in reaction to the Soviets' "Operation August Storm" in Manchuria and the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

History
From 1942 to 1944, the United States conducted a series of "island-hopping" operations during its war with Japan, launching amphibious invasions of Japanese-occupied Pacific island chains with the assistance of US Navy bombardments and air support from Navy carriers and US Army airfields on liberated islands. As the Americans began to make their way towards the Japanese Home Islands, they began to plan out how they would force Japan to surrender. In mid-1944, the USA began Operation Matterhorn, the bombing of Japan from airbases in India and China. Because of the long range that the B-29 heavy bombers had to travel, they were unable to have fighter escorts, forcing them to start high-altitude bombing runs in order to protect them from enemy fire. This meant less accuracy, and the Nakajima aircraft factory raid of 24 November 1944 was a testament to the futility of high-altitude bombing raids. When the Americans made use of incendiaries at low altitude at Hankow on 18 December 1944, however, they discovered the terrifying effect of firebombs. With the capture of the Mariana Islands, the Americans built airbases on Guam, Tinian, and Saipan, and they used these airbases for bombing raids against the Home Islands.

On 20 January 1945, Major-General Curtis LeMay took over XXI Bombing Command in the Marianas and ordered that his B-29s be stripped of their armor and guns in order to increase their flying range and load capacity in readiness for an area-bombing campaign against Japanese cities. The Americans conducted raids from low altitude at night, using firebombs to attack the densely-packed wooden buildings of Japanese cities. On the night of 9/10 March 1945, in "Operation Meetinghouse", 279 B-29s attacked Tokyo and caused even greater devastation than the subsequent atomic bombing of Hiroshima. 2,000 tons of firebombs were dropped over Tokyo, creating a massive firestorm whose glow could be seen 150 miles away. 16 square miles of central Tokyo was annihilated, killing or wounding 124,711 people and leaving 1,000,000 people homeless. The raid was the first of 18 firebombing raids against Japan's "Big Six" cities of Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, and Nagoya. Soon, bombing runs were carried out every other day, and hundreds of B-29s took part in devastating attacks. On 23-24 May, 562 B-29s carried out the largest B-29 raid of the war when they bombed Tokyo, while the greatest number of B-29s committed to a single series of raids was on 1-2 August, when 627 B-29s attacked Hachioji, Mito, Nagaoka, and Toyama. By the war's end, large areas of 66 major cities had been laid to waste, 13,000,000 civilians were homeless, 8,000,000 civilians were evacuated, 40% of Japan's industrial capacity was destroyed, and nearly 1,000,000 civilians were killed. Rates of absenteeism rose as high as 80% in some industrial centers due to a lack of morale, even reaching 40% in Kyoto, which was never bombed. The Imperial Japanese Army was unable to resist, further demoralizing the people.

By the summer of 1945, Japan's people were on the brink of starvation, and food shortages were so bad that the average adult lost a minimum of 10 pounds in weight, while two-thirds lost 20 pounds. Tuberculosis became rampant due to malnutrition, and state price controls were ineffective and rationing haphazard. Even black market goods were merked up, 42 times more than official prices (sugar cost as much as 240 times more). Clothing was scarce or unobtainable, and it had fallen from 9% of Japanese expenditure in 1936 to 1.3% in 1944. Taxes also rose by over a fifth to be a 61.4% income tax. Japan was also coming to an industrial standstill, producing twice as much electricity as it needed. Conscription policies made no provision for reserved occupations, and output per worker in the oil industries fell by half from 1941 to 1945, with the remaining ships having crews some 20% greater than in 1941 because of the loss of high-quality personnel.

At sea, the Allies were also very successful. In July 1945, the Allies sank 298,223 tons of shipping aboard 139 merchantmen, service transports, and auxiliaries. Of these, only three merchantment (2,820 tons) were sunk outside home waters. Japan faced the certainty of invasion, a prospect dreaded by both the Japanese and the Americans. In Japan, there were 1,000,000 Japanese troops ready to defend the island from invasion to the last man, as they had done on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. They were supported by 5,000 aircraft, and new kamikaze pilots were being trained all the time - mass suicide attacks by civilian volunteers were also to be expected. It was estimated that 250,000 American lives might be lost in an invasion of Japan, but President Harry S. Truman heard about the results of the Manhattan Project in July 1945, and he decided to use the atomic bombs against Japan if they refused to heed to the Potsdam Declaration. This declaration stated that the Japanese would face "prompt and utter destruction" if they did not surrender. Emperor Hirohito considered surrender, but military hardliners pressured him not to. On 6 and 9 August 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, killing 20,000 soldiers and 126,000 civilians in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki in horrific acts of mass murder and destruction. While the bombs were ostensibly targeting military bases, they wiped out large areas of both cities and killed several times more civilians than soldiers. The American government controversially claimed that it had no alternative, and both sides of the war were horrified by the havoc wreaked by the new weapons. Japan, which was already threatened by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, Sakhalin, and the Kurile Islands, now faced the inevitable. On 15 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito spoke to millions of Japanese people over the radio, announcing the surrender of Japan. On 2 September 1945, Japan signed the instrument of surrender, ending World War II.

US forces would occupy the Japanese Home Islands after the war, with Douglas MacArthur commanding them. The monarchy was allowed to keep its power, but Japan's military was eliminated in favor of "self-defense forces", and many of its leaders were tried for war crimes. The Americans would oversee the establishment of a truly democratic Japan, free from militarist rule, in which the Prime Minister held the real power in the government, and the emperor was reduced to a puppet. Japan was rebuilt, and its economy boomed due to the rebirth of the country from the ashes of the bombing campaigns. In 1952, the military occupation of Japan came to an end, and the USA returned Okinawa to Japan in 1972, truly bringing the war and its aftermath to a close.